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Sometimes I feel like I am a walking oxymoron. I am both a mainline Christian and an evangelical Christian. At the same time I am indifferent toward or reject aspects of mainline Christianity and aspects of evangelical Christianity. I like to say I am only a Christian and that I need no modifier to explain my faith. Yet I get cornered into situations where I get labeled as either one or the other or am pushed to say certain things that make it seem as though I identify with one over the other.

In my inbox right now I have an email from a mainline church that references my role on their evangelism team and an email from an evangelical church that references my role as a facilitator at their evangelism training. This is craziness! It is craziness, because I suspect each church would be uncomfortable with the other church's methods of evangelism. So I wonder - is there something wrong with me? Why is it that I can identify with both methodologies and both messages and see the stren…

"In the beginning..." Today I started reading through the Bible, Creation to the Throne of God. In just about 5 months I will be ordained as a minister in the Christian church. When I met with the pastor of my home congregation to discuss the ordination process, he challenged me to consider how I might spiritually prepare for ordination. One of the ways I decided to prepare was by reading through the whole Bible between now and then.

While I was on my intercultural immersion study trip in east Kentucky, I learned a lot about the relationship between humans and the earth. I was reminded of how I am lacking in my appreciation for and understanding of nature. Consequently, I feel led to use the Green Bible as my source of devotion for this time period of preparation. I also hope to reflect upon nature by planting a garden this spring and reading from my undergraduate Environmental Studies book.

Today's reading was the story of Creation and Re-Creation through the flood. A…